Verity
by Peppadew
Summary: A love story. Commander Verity Shepard meets Thane Krios during the events of ME1, instead of ME2. In general, this fanfiction encompasses numerous story arcs from ME1 through ME3, exploring universal themes of duty, honor, sacrifice, and love in times of war and loss.


**Verity**

A Mass Effect fanfiction by Peppadew

Chapter 1

Posted 01/01/15; Revised 01/30/15

Through the open door, between the human guards standing at attention on either side, I could see Ambassador Udina sitting at his desk like an irate orchestra conductor, squirreling away offending holographic data with his hands until nothing appeared before him except the bright and steady symbol of the Systems Alliance.

He saw me at the door and ushered me in with a hurried nod. "Come in, Commander. Take a seat."

The ambassador's office was among the largest of the Citadel Embassies, a testament to humanity's growing influence in the galaxy. It was twice the size of the embassy shared by the elcor and volus, and boasted one of the best views of the Presidium grounds far below. The overhanging balcony cut a broad swath behind Udina, flooding the office with artificial light. The simulation of a bright blue sky was so real, I could almost forget I was on a space station.

As I entered, I noted the position of his desk, along with other bits of furniture. A turned planter, a higher wall cabinet; even the L-shaped lounge chairs were facing a different direction than last time. I slipped into one of the two seats facing his desk, confirming my suspicions. Yes, the scale felt wrong. His desk was further away from the door.

I remarked, "The keepers rearranged your office yet again, Ambassador. Do you think they're toying with you?"

"We're not here to discuss the keepers," Udina scowled. It was an off-hand remark. He didn't even look at me, just kept fumbling with the datapads strewn about his desk. I wondered if the keepers had moved even those.

I sat up straighter in my chair, pushing strands of red hair away from my eyes, looking around until I spotted a keeper. I had to strain my neck a little to see the one lurking in Udina's office. It was half-hidden behind a white pillar, connected to a data nodule. Unobtrusive. Silent. It was a pale fleshy creature with four spider-like legs and a boxy collection of cybernetic implants it carried on its back like a child's book bag. I saw one of its long antennae twitching spasmodically and looked away in disgust.

It was far worse catching sight of them in my apartment where the space was smaller. Closer. I hated being near the things. It didn't help that they were everywhere, it seemed.

Udina suddenly asked, "Even after five months on the Citadel, you still feel uncomfortable around them?"

I turned to face him, surprised he had put aside his work long enough to notice my discomfort. Garrus teased me all the time about the keepers. _You look a little green, Shepard_, he'd say. _Do you want to get a closer look?_ I gave Udina the same explanation I gave my turian friend (minus a playful punch in the arm) and said, "Blame human evolution if you like, but four-foot-tall insects creep me out."

"I don't see wh…"

As his mumbles died away, I realized he was looking at me, _really_ looking at me for the first time since I entered his office. His eyes zip-lined back and forth across my armor in disbelief. _Yes, that's blood, Udina_, I thought. _And those are bullet holes_. No doubt he was used to seeing me fully armored, pistols at the hip, but never in such disarray, with the telltale signs of battle so conspicuously presented. The blood was still sticky wet; it glinted in the light, a barely visible tint of green against the backdrop of my armor's patterning of night black and dark green camo.

He exclaimed, all accusation, "You were on a mission?!"

"I've come straight from it," I said, unnecessarily. "You did indicate this was an emergency."

'Emergency' dripped with enough mockery that I instantly regretted it. The last thing I needed was for Udina to realize how little I respected these meetings. Thankfully, they weren't all that frequent, but I still viewed them as a waste of time. _Everything_ was an emergency to Udina; he blew things out of proportion, scattered blame like wildfire, and most of all, he seemed to elicit a certain joy in questioning my every move. Captain Anderson had warned me it wouldn't be easy working on the Citadel, but still it came as a shock to realize how embroiled I'd become in the political system.

I was just a soldier, after all.

"Sorry, Ambassador," I offered, acknowledging my previous rudeness, but it did little to assuage his unease. He didn't like being left out of the loop. I added, "I'm tired. It was a long night."

Udina crossed his arms. "Care to fill me in?"

_No. Just trust me_, I wanted to say.

He glared at me, waiting, a perpetual scowl set in its usual place right below his hawkish nose and hazel eyes. It always astounded me, when I had cause to look straight at him, how beautiful the color of his eyes really were. A kaleidoscope of greens and browns, speckles of gold; all of it lost on a rather plain face. He was a middle-aged man with soft hands. I looked at_ my_ hands. There was blood under my fingernails; green blood.

"Well?" Udina growled, still waiting. He hated waiting.

I said, slowly and calmly (as if it would make a difference), "I've made an arrest. Dr. Saleon."

Udina shot to his feet. "I knew you wouldn't leave it alone!"

I blew out my nose in annoyance, my mouth sealed shut in thinly veiled fury. _You didn't see the bodies. You have no frakkin' idea._

"Where is he being held?" he demanded, waving his hands across a row of comm activators. Holograms sprang to life, rising up from the white-washed planes of his desk. "I have to inform the salarian councilor before it's too late."

"C-Sec," I answered, slightly offended. _What? Did he think I locked him in my closet?_

"At least you had enough brains not to put him in Alliance custody," he shot back. His hands tickled over the holograms like he was playing a vertical piano.

Shaking my head, I leaned back in my chair, staring off at the artificial blue sky. I didn't appreciate his insult. My eyes finally slid back to his face and I said, glaring at him, "I wouldn't bother. He's probably through processing by now. He won't escape justice; not this time." _And if he does, I'll put a bullet through his brain._

He didn't give up.

"Do the words 'political shit storm' mean anything to you?" Saliva spat from his mouth. "Dr. Saleon is one of the salarian councilor's most trusted friends," ―which made him untouchable, in Udina's eyes― "and a highly regarded geneticist. You can't just arrest him!"

"I have reasonable suspicion and―"

"Suspicion!? Jesus Jon Grissom Christ!" He looked ready to burst into flames. "You're putting your Spectre candidacy in grave peril, not to mention my job! The salarian councilor specifically warned us―" He stopped short, an alarm blaring. He stated in disbelief, "The salarian embassy is refusing me direct communication."

My heart lifted in relief. The salarian councilor's intervention _was_ a real threat, one I was hoping to delay far beyond Udina's little meeting.

He scrambled at the controls. "I have to try again."

I just sat back, relaxing. He continued his frantic activity over the holograms, grumbling and swearing, until his hands came to a reluctant standstill. Poor guy looked utterly dejected. Sighing loudly (for my benefit, no doubt), he finally shut down the holograms, one by one, until the Systems Alliance symbol shone bright and steady once more―his dormant system holosaver.

I met his gaze eye for eye, and for a long awkward moment neither of us spoke. He suddenly slapped his hand down on the desk, rattling a pile of datapads so violently that they scattered, dropping to the floor. "Dammit, Shepard! Didn't I tell you to back off?"

After a suitable pause, I leaned forward and held his eyes fiercely with mine, willing him to understand. I said, "I can't, and I won't. His victims were human. His victims were asari, and turian, and, yes, even salarian, his own kind. When the truth comes out, it won't matter who he is, only _what_ he is: a monster."

"You've put ten years of diplomatic progress in jeopardy, not to mention your own Spectre candidacy! How do you justify―"

Frak me, he was so predictable! Blowing things out of proportion, once again! Refusing to even listen.

I held up a hand to cut off his tirade. I no longer had the patience to level my voice, so I raised it, shouting so loudly that the guards at the door curiously turned their heads to stare in at us. "Enough about the doctor! Ambassador, what's the frakking emergency?"

Udina forcefully pressed a red button on his desk. The doors to his office slammed shut in immediate response. He said through gritted teeth, "Something's happened."

_I left Dr. Saleon for this. It'd better be good_. I'd been with Garrus, dragging the hand-cuffed doctor through the long, crowded halls of C-Sec towards Executor Pallin's office, when I first received Udina's comm alert on an encrypted Priority-One channel reserved for high-ranking Alliance officers. I had to leave.

_He'll be here when you get back. I promise_, Garrus had said, noticing my hesitation.

We'd spent all night chasing the bastard. Dr. Saleon led us through all five Wards before we finally snagged him in Zakera, at a docking port. He was trying to board his get-a-way, the MSV Fedele. We both wanted inside that ship real bad (_Evidence!_), but by then Citadel Security was on top of us and we had to bring him in, or risk being arrested ourselves for attempting to board private property without a permit, thanks to Executor Pallin's boneheaded rules.

I so clearly remembered Dr. Saleon's smug smile; it widened as C-Sec police officers poured in around us, demanding to know what we were doing to the 'kind doctor' and to 'back away at once!' Dr. Saleon was bleeding badly from multiple gunshot wounds, green splotches sprouting from his chest like jungle-infested islands.

No one else saw the doctor's smug smile. It disappeared into a face twisted by howls of rage at this 'injustice' and screeching accusations that we were abducting him. None of the officers knew about my work with C-Sec, otherwise I might have gotten away with it. Had they been higher up the chain of command, or in a special division (not just regular cops), or had they actually worked with me before (like I did with Garrus), I probably could've talked my way unto the MSV Fedele, but as it was, Garrus and I had trouble just getting them to lower their weapons. Garrus flashed his detective badge, but still they came at us like rabid dogs. _What, am I arresting Salarian Jesus? _I just concentrated on maintaining a chokehold grip on the doctor's scrawny neck.

The officers finally calmed down a little when I allowed one of them to apply a quick medi-gel application to staunch the doctor's wounds. From there, I marched Dr. Saleon straight into C-Sec, only to be interrupted by Udina's comm alert.

_You won't get away with this, human! You have no proof!_ Dr. Saleon had bellowed at the top of his lungs as I left him behind with Garrus, right outside the Executor's office with a dozen angry C-Sec officers in tow. They had followed us the entire way back like a cloud of locusts, eating away at my patience.

_No proof_. It echoed in my ears, making me sick. It was a wall I'd been climbing for months, but now that Garrus and I knew about the MSV Fedele, it changed everything! A flood of panic rose inside me, amplified by urgency and fear. _I never should have left him_. If Udina was right, if Executor Pallin surrendered to salarian pressure and released the doctor…

I needed to get inside that frakkin' ship!

Udina's voice cut through my frantic thoughts. "You're being pulled off the Citadel immediately. Captain Anderson has asked me to relay your new orders."

"Pulled off…?" I heard my breathy, shocked voice, as if from a distance. _'The hell is going on?_ It took a moment for my brain to switch gears. I mentally pushed Dr. Saleon aside and blurted, all flustered, "Wait, the Alliance scratched my contract with C-Sec?"

"You never had an official contract with C-Sec. It was all under the table."

_I know_, I wanted to scream at him. My work with C-Sec was meant to be a testing ground. I was being vetted by the Council for Spectre status―secretly, as I'd been told, for political reasons. 'Officially,' I was just a security liaison between C-Sec and the Alliance Navy, but even that job title was circumspect, buried beneath the more commonly known 'Commander.' Or as Garrus put it: '_Human. Female. Military_,' and with a grin that stretched his mandibles, '_Badass_.'

Udina lifted his hand, as if in apology. He said, "I know what you meant, and the answer is no. The Alliance is not changing their mind about you. You're still being put forward as our best candidate for Spectre status, and the Council is still in approval, but after today, when they find out about Dr. Saleon―"

I cut him off. I wasn't worried about _that_. I was dead sure about Dr. Saleon. Nothing would sway my decision to bring him down.

Instead I asked, "Why are you acting as a go-between for Captain Anderson?" It was strange, to say the least. Udina wasn't military.

"Because of the political nature of this mission. You've been handpicked for it, Shepard. This comes straight from the top."

With the flick of a wrist, he picked up a palm-sized datapad from the floor and slapped it down on the desk in front of me. Alliance encryption briefly flickered across the screen as I swiped my left forearm across it, uploading the data to my activated omni-tool, my arm briefly encircled in a burst of orange, holographic light. The blaze hurt my eyes. I was more tired than I cared to admit.

I glanced at the headers on the data stream uploaded to my omni-tool. It _was_ straight from Alliance brass. _Frakking hell. The timing couldn't be worse…_

He nodded at the datapad. "How versed are you in Prothean technology?"

I snorted. "Can't say archeology is one of my specialties."

In fact, I'd be surprised if anyone in the entire Milky Way galaxy was a true Prothean expert.

I could recite the basics (every Alliance recruit took a galactic history class). The Protheans were an advanced, spacefaring civilization that mysteriously disappeared about 50,000 years ago, leaving behind ruins upon which all modern day technology was based. Several examples came easily to mind: the Prothean-constructed mass effect relays that allowed instantaneous point-to-point spaceflight (scientists were still puzzled _how_), or the Prothean-derived mass accelerators, the engineering marvel of modern weaponry.

Even the Citadel was a relic of the Protheans. The space station wasn't just home to millions of aliens. It was unequivocally the political center and cultural heart of the galaxy, an 'enduring monument to our ancient benefactors,' as the Council liked to say.

And if the Alliance was running a military operation involving Prothean technology, it could only mean one thing.

"What did we find? A weapons archive?" I asked, ignoring the rest of the data transferred to my omni-tool. I'd read the fine details later; for now I expected Udina to give me the short version.

And for once, it actually seemed like Udina's definition of emergency coincided with mine. Weapons archive or not, it was risky business securing Prothean ruins. Often they were outside Council space on uncharted worlds, vulnerable to smugglers, mercenaries, shady corporations and terrorist organizations. Even the occasional religious zealot could pose a serious security risk. The hanar (a species reminiscent of Earth's jellyfish) were known for flocking to ruins in droves, preaching the truth of the Enkindlers (as they called the Protheans), all the while obstructing excavation or sabotaging research.

In the eyes of the Citadel Council, the self-proclaimed leaders of galactic society, it was a serious crime to obstruct the investigation of Prothean technology. Offenders weren't just breaking the law, they were 'undermining the progress of society itself.' As much as the Council encouraged individual species to share their Prothean research with the wider galactic community, it was still very common for discoveries to remain hidden, secreted away under the guise of self-interest.

The last time humanity discovered a major Prothean ruin, it turned into a treasure trove of medical breakthroughs in biotechnology. Sirta Foundation, an Earth-based megacorp, spearheaded the advancements in medi-gel technology, all built upon Prothean research. Eventually, our research was shared―well, _sold_ actually. The Ambassador certainly proved his worth then, I'll give him that. Medi-gel was technically illegal under genetic modification laws, but Udina managed to quell the Council's objections, allowing legal sales of the medi-gel product (instead of black market dealings). The product was just too beneficial to ignore. It saved lives. Saved _my_ life on more than one occasion. Taking bullets was an inevitable part of my job, despite fancy shield modulators and armor plating.

This time, if we actually found a weapons archive, I couldn't imagine the Alliance sharing it anytime soon, for profit or otherwise. It was just too dangerous. _If it fell into the wrong hands_…

Ambassador Udina nodded at my question, "Yes, that's what they're saying. The researchers have ruled out biological, nuclear… Could be some kind of superluminal application we've never seen before. I don't know." He leaned forward over the desk, gazing down his hawkish nose at me. I gripped the edge of my chair. "What I _do_ know is that a Prothean beacon was unearthed approximately five days ago on Eden Prime. The data I gave you is preliminary research, and even then it's overwhelming. The beacon's unlike anything we've ever encountered before. Look, I know you're not a Prothean expert. You'll of course be running security at the site, but I'm here to make sure you understand the political repercussions of what we're about to do. The Alliance has decided to share the beacon."

"_Share_ the beacon? What―with the Council?"

"Yes, exactly that." The ambassador leaned back in his chair, sighing heavily. "I've spent the last two days on the comm with Parliament, convincing the Alliance to not throw this gift away. The beacon's not just military research. It's political leverage."

I almost laughed. _Political leverage?_ I blurted, "I can't believe _anyone_ is even entertaining the idea―"

"It's big, Shepard. Big enough to build trust, _real_ trust with the aliens. This will be a mutual endeavor, a scientific exploration. The beacon's not just a weapons archive. They say it's the largest data cache ever discovered. We may find engineering and medical blueprints, mathematical advances, galactic maps, historical archives, even art."

Prothean discoveries _were_ amazing. Hell, it was a grandiose reason to travel the stars in the first place, to fulfill that inexhaustible human hunger to know _what's out there_…

…which turned out to be a whole bunch of aliens, many of whom were wary of humans, if not downright hostile. Our alien relations were shaky at best, even with an embassy under our belt.

I scrambled to put my bad gut-feeling into words, saying, "I just feel we're going into this too fast, too _blind_. From what you're telling me, we aren't exactly sure what this beacon is. Running out to share it with the Council looks good and all, but…" I fell short of words, growling in frustration.

Udina listened with a stony face, shaking his head, clearly not sharing my misgivings.

I jumped out of my seat and paced back and forth in front of his desk, battling this out in my head. _Garrus would laugh at me_, I thought. If the entire Turian Hierarchy were made up of turians like Garrus, I'd happily share the beacon in a heartbeat. I trusted Garrus, but at present he was the only alien I truly called friend in my heart.

_Frak! Am I really so untrusting, so selfish?_

Sharing sounded great in principle, but the truth was, when it came down to finding new and creative ways of killing people, just the idea of a 'Prothean weapons archive' scared the hell out of me. Protheans were supposedly the most advanced species ever to exist. What if we weren't ready to unlock more of their secrets? After all, they were _gone_ and we had no idea why. What if we discovered something best left in the ground? Did we leave decisions like that up to our politicians?

_Frak no_. We should have kept the beacon top-secret, figured out what we were dealing with first... _Dammit, Anderson! Why didn't you delay this frakking political stunt?_

I stopped pacing and faced Udina. I tried a different approach, saying, "Scientific, political―say what you want, this is a _military_ concern now, Ambassador. We don't give technology to our enemies."

Udina opened his mouth to reply, but I cut him off, raising my hand, saying, "I _know_ the Council isn't our enemy. I'm talking about the risk. As soon as it's out there, it could fall into batarian hands. Or the krogan, for that matter. If that doesn't make Parliament think twice, then I don't know what will."

The ambassador didn't even blink. "It's a risk we have to take, and Parliament is inclined to agree with me. I'm sorry, Shepard, but the decision's already been made."

I shook my head, furious.

It's not that I didn't trust the Council _in principle_. I just knew it was a big universe out there, and despite making noises about good intentions, things invariably went wrong. For all the Council's power, they were still vulnerable. Hell, the entirety of the Terminus Systems were against them.

And there was the Shadow Broker.

Technology, information―all of it was traded on the black markets. There was no way something like this could be contained. By reputation, the Shadow Broker had no allegiances, no qualms. He (or _she_, nobody really knew) would sell us out in a heartbeat.

Udina tried again, as if all I needed was a better explanation. "If humanity wants a larger role in shaping interstellar policy, we need more say with the Council, and that means showing them we can cooperate for the greater good. Like it or not, we're sharing that beacon." His eyes burned. "Whatever it takes until we're accepted into the Council."

Until _he_ was accepted.

I wanted to laugh. Was _that_ what this was about?

I'd been on the Citadel for five months now, long enough to realize Udina's personal ambitions extended far beyond the realistic expectations set by the Alliance. He wanted to be the first human Councilor. He wanted to make history.

Personal ambition was all well and good, but not when it compromised humanity's future. Or safety, for that matter.

With no other choice, I could go along with the Alliance sharing the beacon with the Council if it was a genuine push for cooperation and reconciliation, and if certain safeguards were in place to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

But the fact that Udina had been the one behind the whole idea made me extremely suspicious of his true motives. How could I truly believe Udina wanted to cooperate with the Council when he blamed the Council for everything? He was always telling me: 'The Council is anti-human,' 'the Council is holding back humanity,' 'the galaxy needs _real_ leadership…' From where I stood, Udina lived for defiance of the Council. _Frakking two-faced politicians._ Maybe it was just politics, maybe all this two-faced brownnosing was just how it was done, but that didn't mean I had to like it, or go along with it.

I knew from Garrus that many of the aliens aboard the Citadel, in politics or not, didn't especially like Udina. In the news or in person, he always came across as the schoolyard bully, pushing for humanity's interest (as was his job, to be fair), but in a way that showed no sensitivity towards what the Council _had_ conceded to humans (a sizable embassy in record-breaking time). I got the impression he was making everyone nervous, me included. I wanted humanity to _earn_ our place in the galaxy, not be handed it out of fear or contempt. To Ambassador Udina, it didn't seem to matter, and every concession was never enough. All that mattered was getting humanity that Council seat, at all costs. _His_ Council seat. (Never mind that the elcor and volus had been waiting for _centuries_ to be accepted into the Council; literally, centuries). I could only imagine what the Councilors thought of him.

Despite being vetted for Spectre status by the Council, I actually knew very little about its three Councilors. No names. Just species. Asari. Salarian. Turian. Each representing billions spread across the known galaxy. Very few were granted face-to-face audiences with them. More often communication was over distances; I, for one, only ever saw them as holograms. Between the three of them, they had more power than all the leaders of human history combined. The Council was the height of galactic power, a millennia-old rule founded by the asari, the first to discover the Citadel. We were still mucking through the Iron Age on Earth when the asari welcomed the salarians into the Council, and eventually the turians by virtue of their role in crushing the Krogan Rebellions. This was the balance of power that had existed for centuries―three species, three councilors―and now humanity on the outside looking in.

Udina wasn't wrong for wanting the best for humanity. It was how we got there that mattered to me.

I stared right back at Udina with a little burning in _my_ eyes. "I understand what's at stake, Ambassador. Let's get on with it."

"Very well," Udina replied, though not so diplomatically that I didn't catch the slight narrowing of his eyes, the clench of his jaw.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that he mistrusted me. I was Commander Verity Shepard, after all, a war hero, but five months on the Citadel hadn't made us friends, and I knew he wasn't entirely behind my nomination for Spectre candidacy. It was actually Captain Anderson and Admiral Hackett who were mainly responsible for getting me his far, to the exclusion of many others. A lot was riding on my shoulders, and I think Udina despised the fact that his political future was so dependent on my success. That made my Spectre candidacy incredibly connected to his political game.

To be fair, that game had started well before Udina. The first human ambassador, Anita Goyle, realized that getting a human into the Spectres would be the first step towards humanity gaining a seat in the Council. She was ultimately unsuccessful. Whoever they put forward for Spectre candidacy had failed years ago, well before my time. I had never learned who it was, and the fact that no one else had ever gotten as close made my own Spectre candidacy incredibly sensitive and important.

Spectres were an elite group of agents entrusted with extraordinary authority by the Citadel Council over matters of galactic stability. They were selected from a wide range of alien races, but mostly they came from the Council races: the turians, salarians, or asari. Many Spectres also came from the ranks of Citadel Security―and that was exactly where and why my journey had begun on the Citadel five months ago.

_C-Sec's your ticket in_, Captain Anderson had said. He'd poured out two glasses of whiskey, companionably shared in his captain's quarters aboard the SSV Tokyo. More than Admiral Hackett, more than anyone, he believed in me.

He'd warned me about Udina, though at the time I thought it nothing. A jab at politicians. _Everyone_ hates politicians. But as time passed aboard the Citadel, I began to see what Anderson had been getting at. At first, Udina and I stayed out of each other's way, but then he began sticking his nose into my C-Sec operations on the Citadel, turning 'emergencies into opportunities,' as he liked to say. Control. Manipulation. I made a point to never let his meddling directly compromise a mission, but it was difficult to discern just what Udina was doing behind the scenes.

The issue with Dr. Saleon was case in point. As soon as I walked out that door, I knew he'd try to undermine my progress in getting the doctor arrested and brought to justice. He was a thorn in my side, and I wanted to pluck him out.

As I stared at him now, I looked deeper. His heart was racing. I could see the pulse in his neck, furiously pumping blood.

_He's angry. He doesn't want me to screw this up_.

His eyes still burned, but they seemed hollow to me now. Like he believed in nothing but his own advancement. Like he lived only on the surface of things. _Like a symbol_, I thought. It still shone bright and steady between us, floating above his desk. The symbol of the Systems Alliance, the Earth sheltered by silver wings.

It was more than a symbol to me. It was my life.

"My orders?" I asked, flexing my fingers. Dr. Saleon's green salarian blood was drying, flaking off my skin.

"The Alliance has agreed to move the beacon to the Citadel for proper study. Your orders are to secure its recovery and transport. You'll rendezvous with Captain Anderson at Arcturus Station, then head immediately for Eden Prime." He clasped his hands together, resting them on the desk. "Do you have any questions?"

"When do I leave?"

"Within the hour. There's a frigate standing by in Docking Bay 416. Good luck, Commander."

Author's Notes: The heart of this fanfic will revolve around Verity Shepard and Thane Krios, but he doesn't enter the story for a few more chapters. At the moment, I'm trying to build up Shepard's personality and life circumstances before she meets Thane. Hang tight! Thanks for reading.


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